Posted by By Frances Ovia on
Foreigners who come into the country on business trips or on holidays no longer need to patronise Bureau the Change to change their money into local currency as they can now use their MasterCard payment card to conduct transactions on payment terminals deployed across the country.
Foreigners who come into the country on business trips or on holidays no longer need to patronise Bureau the Change to change their money into local currency as they can now use their MasterCard payment card to conduct transactions on payment terminals deployed across the country.
This was made possible by the interconnection of the Interswitch and Card Technology Limited (CTL) transaction switching systems. The two companies signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to interoperate their switching operations in December 2005.
By this interconnection, the Nigeria ePayment debit cards issued by InterSwitch member banks can be used on all payment terminals (ATMs, POS, Internet gateway payment) deployed by banks connected to Cards Technology Limited (CTL) locally and vice versa.
In addition, banks connected to Interswitch who issue MasterCard cards would be able to process transactions from these through Interswitch and Cards Technology.
In the bid to ensure that the country becomes a cashless economy, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) awarded switching licenses to Cards Technology Limited and InterSwitch Limited to process financial transactions electronically for financial institutions, corporate bodies, utilities and government parastatals.
InterSwitch has an online real-time integration to 23 out of the 25 consolidated banks. This connection allows all entities on the InterSwitch network to share hitherto expensive systems like ATMs, Point of Sales Terminals (POS) in a non-obtrusive but yet cost effective manner.
InterSwitch was built to provide a cost-effective and value-driven superswitch infrastructure through which organisations can provide services to their customers (and receive payment) using multiple channels.
The platform runs on an open and scalable transaction and payment processing EFT Software. This enables payment solutions to be tailored to various organizations and market needs.
Cards Technology Limited serves as a payment gateway to the global scene by virtue of its MasterCard Member Service Provider-Third Party Processor (MSP-TTP) status by which it has an online real-time connection to over 200 financial institutions and member banks, locally and internationally. Nigerian banks connected to Interswitch network have issued over two million Nigeria Debit Card while banks on the CTL network have issued over 15,000 MasterCard. Presently there are over 700 ATMs and 1000 PoS connected to Interswitch network.
At a ceremony organized by Interswitch to honour its immediate past Chairman, Dr. Evens Woherem and launch some of its value added service which include vending of telecommunications airtime on ATMs, the Chief Executive Officer and Managing
Director of Access Bank Plc demonstrated the interoperability of the two switches.
According to the Managing Director of Cards Technology, Ayo Arise, ‘The partnership illustrates the great benefits and added-value to be delivered to end-users as a result of the good relationship that exists between the two companies in the area of electronic financial transaction processing.
His, 'I am very happy that the two companies saw enough reasons to interconnect our switches. MasterCard is more elitist and we are proud of what Interswitch is doing. Our relationship is all about cooperation and competition."
Dotun Seleiman, the new Chairman of Interswitch and former Managing Director of Accenture Nigeria Limited said with the interconnection of the two switches, foreigners who comes into Nigeria on business trips or for holidays need not to go to bureau exchange to change their money into Naira again.
His words, 'we are happy that with this interoperability between Interswitch and CTL and by extension MasterCard, foreigners who comes to Nigeria need not to go to the bureau exchange to change their money to local currency again. With their MasterCard payment card, they can get the Naira equivalent of their value from local ATMs. More so they can conduct merchant-based transactions at our Point of Sale (PoS) terminals."